Marie Kondo season now

9 December 2020 Leave a comment

The Marie Kondo season has come. Re-organize, give away, say “Thank you” and “Goodbye” to old stuff. 

This is not because of the approaches of Christmas and Lunar New Year ahead. It is simply that now that I have retired, I have been freed of many of the church ministry “To Do List” priority items, that kept many of the household duties and tasks awaiting my attention. Now that those items at the top have been removed, those at the bottom are nearer the top, and gets my attention. 

Ministry work stretched the intellectual and psychological. Preparing and preaching the sermon and trainings, evaluating and planning the worship services, facilitating meetings for planning, strategizing, reconciling, and supervising have all required the investment of spiritual, mental and emotional energies. 

Therefore, I welcome this Marie Kondo season, this season of mainly physical work with my hands. It moves me towards a wholeness and awareness of things I see, touch, smell and handle. It can be mind-boggling to figure out the best place to store stuff. Yes, sometimes I struggle emotionally to say thank you and goodbye to old pre-loved stuff that served me so well. Yet overall I find a satisfaction in seeing rapid tangible results (in contrast to trying to solve church problems like late-coming worshippers): the room became tidy, the display looked pretty, the cupboards began to breathe, I see the changes and congratulate myself, “Well done!”. 

I had a list of 29 things to do of which 9 have been done. Twenty more awaits my attention. One of them is painting the ceilings of the whole house, and the walls of two or three bedrooms. This will probably take the longest time, as I will do this in stages. I am no longer the 30 year old new house-owner who could paint the living room in half-a-day! And I belong to the generation that would rather save money and do the painting myself, rather than hire professionals to do it. 

Its burdensome when I look at the list. But if I see it as part as my movement towards wholeness, towards development of the under-developed part of my person – the sensory – it helps cast a redemptive light on the strain and load. My mantra is “This is good for me”.

Lord, help me to see you in these mundane and dreary tasks. After all, You once worked with your hands and made things. You did it with pride and an eye to your Father’s praise. Help me to see You in all things, and to find meaning in doing the most uncomfortable, dirty, odious of chores. 

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Father’s Day

23 June 2020 Leave a comment

This Father’s Day was doubly special because it was the first time my family are all together for the first time in a long time. At one time all my children were working or studying overseas. One by one they came back to work in Singapore. Except my daughter. However, the pandemic opened the way for her to work from home in Singapore. So everyone was back, but covid-19 kept everyone away. My two sons have their homes and they had to stay home. Only my daughter was at home with me and my wife. While it was great to have her with us, Mother’s Day went by without the whole family together. This Father’s Day then was the first time my whole family were together for the first time since the Circuit Breaker, about 70 days.

They brought over beef steaks, sausages, baked vegetables, mashed potatoes, mushroom soup and garlic bread. We sat around the round glass table and ate a decent Western meal, talking about what’s happening, my retirement, the election, the grandchildren, working from home, and news about our in laws in US and in Korea. 

We started early so that we could end early and the children can go home to sleep early and prepare for school. Chloe insisted on a game of UNO before they went back and it was fun to play card games as a family. 

A wonderful evening that is gratifying and filled with pleasure and fun and relaxation. When everyone said their goodbyes and left it was still early and we could wash up and watch some TV before we retired.

Grateful to God for watching over and blessing all the children and their spouses and the grandchildren. It is every grandparents prayer that all will go well for their descendants physically, spiritually, relationally and emotionally. May God bless and keep them. 

We were so absorbed that we hardly took any photos all that time!

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Knowing your limits

20 June 2020 Leave a comment

There is faith and there is prudence, and then there is wisdom to know the difference. As a Pentecostal I am fully aware of how our faith can break down limits the world sets upon us. However, I often forget the limits God places on us in kingdom positioning, assignment and anointing. There are measures of faith and grace. God sets the limit. Even our physical bodies has limits.

I forgot my physical limits and suffered for about three weeks. My wife and I were walking the park connector near our home. Staying home during the pandemic meant putting on weight and feeling lethargic. We wanted to burn some serious calories by doing a lengthy walk – a three hours walk along the Ulu Pandan Park connector.

Ulu Pandan PCN

I had felt a niggle on my left foot. Since I was a seasoned hiker, I ignored it. After all this was not an arduous hike up Bukit Timah Hill but simply a walk on flat paths. It should be alright. But alright it was not. Two days later my Achilles’ tendon was inflamed and I could not rest my left foot on the ground because of intense pain. I must confess this was not the first time when I over extended myself and found myself moving around the house on a chair with rollers.

The polyclinic appointment schedule was full all the time. I had no choice but to self-medicate. As I said, this was not the first time. I roughly knew it would take about a week to fully recover and regain my mobility. It was okay because I can still work from home. I was supposed to start recording my sermons in church, but couldn’t because I couldn’t walk. Not even from the home to my carpark. So my wife helped me record my sermon from home. – God bless her she had to serve me as I was virtually immobile.

What worsened things was I had a fall after a shower. I tried to hop on one foot over a low threshold but slipped and sprained of all places, the ankle of my left foot already inflamed at the heel. I suppose it was good to have all the pain on the left so at least my right foot was okay.

Reminds me of what St Paul said about how every member of the Body of Christ is vital to the full functioning and health of the whole. So too each member needs to be healthy and functioning to obey the Head and do God’s will.

Now I can walk on both feet – with a slight limp and with my left foot not fully flexible. I am very grateful to God, for when the pain was at its worse I would cry our earnestly for the Lord to have mercy and to heal. He has heard my cry. No instant miracle but a slow gradual healing, so that I could reflect of what wisdom He wants to impart to me and for me only.

Who knows, maybe this applies to you too? But I am convinced its for me. I NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY PHYSICAL LIMITS AND GIVE ATTENTION TO THEM. At 64, I cannot run around the basketball court for hours. I cannot jump as I hard as I used to when I was 17 years old. Not even do what I used to do ten years ago, when hiking mountains and hopping downhill like a mountain goat. I must build up and condition my body from one level of intensity to the next gradually. I must also do proper warm-ups and warm-downs. These have to be mandatory. I used to be able to escape punishment from ignoring these – but not any more. I must listen to my body. My body is telling me but my memory is refusing to listen. My memory tells me, Come on, you have climbed mountains – what is this? A walk in the park. I forget my body is no longer as physically in tip-top condition like it was 10 years back . Back then I was training regularly and my legs were conditioned to take a lot of punishment. Not any more.

When I get well, and I am able to walk without the slightest tinge of pain. I will need to patiently and gradually build up the distance and intensity my legs will be able to cope with. No more sudden Increases in kilometres or incline. And proper warm-ups too. It may be weeks before I hike Bukit Timah Hill again. Maybe months, but I hope not. I fear that I would never hike the hills again.

I treasure mobility. I appreciate being able to walk free from pain. This is priceless.

Have you ever learned a similar lesson of accepting your limits? Share your story in the comment below.

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Learning fast

8 May 2020 Leave a comment

There was no choice. I had to learn fast how to record my sermons.

First, I had to buy the wireless mic, and the adapter cable for the phone. Then I had to recorded my Sunday sermons with my wife’s help and the media team leader’s advice via whatsapp video calls.

My Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is proving to be an asset. Its video is top quality for 5 minutes and 10 minutes for the best settings. But even the third best setting is sufficient to give more than 45 minutes of good quality video for the Sunday online service via YouTube.

It felt stressful to do this. Lots of unknown areas. Lots of experimenting and going back and forth with Zephaniah. Stressful also to talk in front of a phone camera and an empty hall. Had to rehearse the script. Had to remember the main points and ideas. It all adds to the stress.

It was strangely satisfying to see myself on screen. I used to hate to watch videos of myself preaching. Interestingly, it was not as painful this time round watching myself on TV preach to myself in the living room. I am becoming comfortable with the way I appear on video, and I feel immense satisfaction that it was recorded using a Note 9, and desk tripod, and wireless mic.

Of course the media team did a lot of editing. That is something I hope to learn in the near future.

The pandemic has forced this on me and my staff. They too are learning to record their own sermons and sending them to the editing team.

The members are beneficiaries. Shorter, sharper, clearer sermons, and therefore services, every Sunday.

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Holy Saturday: patient waiting

11 April 2020 2 Comments

Most Protestants do not know bother meditating on Holy Saturday. Who would blame them? As a pastor I myself hardly taught about it, or even thought about it. It is exposure to contemplative spirituality that led me to discern a rich vein of golden truths hidden in the tomb.

The waiting in the tomb speaks to me in so many ways. It tells me that many periods in life can be like being in the uncertain tomb, between the certainties of death and resurrection. To the disciples who followed Jesus it was certainly a period of anxiety, confusion, ambiguity, and the humiliation of not knowing what to do. There are times of transitions in our life when this is exactly how we feel too. We do not know for certain how things will pan out. Will I be able to get a job after the pandemic? Will I lose my current job?

We do learn however that we need to do during this time of uncertainty is WAIT. Waiting patiently is not exactly a Millenial’s favourite thing to do. For that matter, nobody of any age likes to wait. But this stillness, silence and waiting in the tomb is exactly what God is inviting us to do. For in that waiting will be birthed forth and formed the new you that will be able to cope, enjoy, endure and triumph over what is NEXT.

Waiting in stillness, silence and in darkness

Which is what this period of ‘circuit breaker’ seems to be all about. We are in our homely tombs. We feel uncertain as the daily number of covid-19 cases increases rather than decreases. Its been five days and uncertainty still prevails. It is clear we need to be more strict and careful with our social distancing. But what happens next nobody can be sure, although the graph should show a downward curve by the end of the one month of tempered lock down. We are in the in between period, the liminal space of neither here nor there, or not knowing what or how, of seeing through a glass darkly. We will learn that God’s delay is not denial, and his silence is not abandonment.

Jesus stayed still, silent and waited as the dead would. But in his faith perfected by suffering, he knew that the Father, in due time would come to rescue him from the grip of death, and breathe in him the resurrection life of eternal power. We too will need to exercise a faith that after we die in the Lord, there will be a resurrection of the dead from the graves and columbariums and the seas and the earth, and it will be a resurrection unto life, not condemnation or judgment.

Online seder-bringing together four households through WhatsApp

This Holy Saturday, my daughter in law, Ping, organized and led a seder passover meal, a Christian version. It brought together four households via WhatsApp video call. We got the bread, grapejuice, some bitter stuff (wasabi, or herbs), a candle. We gave parts to everyone, including our grandchildren, and went through the script patiently. How wonderful for family to be together in this way – pondering over the great escape from the angel of death through the Blood of the Lamb applied on the doorposts of every believing familiy! This is good preparation for the Lord’s Table on Easter Sunday tomorrow.

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